Currently no evidence to suggest heart problems are becoming more common
IOW, before Covid athletes learned the unpleasant way they had heart problems
at the same rate.
Sometimes it comes close to "home". At a 2019 trail run where I was an aid station volunteer one of the marathon runners collapsed and died of a heart attack one or two aid stations after going through where I was. I routinely chat up runners coming through "my" aid station, partly to cheer them on, partly to see if they are "all there" and OK. Until a T'giving weekend turkey trot this year, I had not been able to complete a half marathon since the end of December 2017; in 2015 I had completed 12 half marathons and done 16.85 miles in an endurance event. I won't give the long version of the process, but after a surgical procedure the fixed the problem, I realized that my heart rate had not been responding properly to physical stress, and had affected what I could do as early as 2017 or 2016 (I was "deferred" from donating blood early in 2016 because my heart rate was too slow). I'm no athlete in his prime, but I, too, had a heart problem that affected what I could do, and the beginning of discovering it was a stroke.
Obviously, 2017 and summer 2019 were well before Covid
bogey-vaccines were created. I'm registered for a flat 10K on NYD, a somewhat hilly 10K later in January, plan to do two flat halfs in February, and ??? beyond that. 7 months after my second Pfizer shot and 11 months after recovering from Covid, I'm almost back to my capabilities of 4 years ago.
There is no meaningful difference between
Covid Panic Mongerers gaming and exploiting people's fears and
Anti-Covid-Vaxxers who game and exploit people's lack of information about how vaccines work and what the ordinary levels of side effects are from meds and dihydrogen monoxide. Pig crap is pig crap, regardless of the variety of the pig.
